The 3 elements of our video

After being told it wouldn't be possible for the boy to dance in the forrest we contemplated other locations for the dance element to occur. We considered a car park such a this:

Although we later determined that this doesn't suit the mood of the track. Instead it has more of an urban feel which we thought was not worth changing our song again so we continued to look for more locations which would be feasible.

We considered the studio with lighting similar to the official video for the song, although not in black and white:

Inspired by the song lyrics we added to the idea with the concept of filming his shadow and the use of flickering lights.

After this we realised we only had 2 elements to our music video. The lip sync performance and the dance performance. We needed to add another element in order to make our video interesting enough to last 2 and a half minutes. Inspired by a Tom Odell video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwpMEbgC7DA) we came up with a new idea. In the Tom Odell video the girl craves his attention and doesn't receive any back from him he simply sings to the camera without acknowledging she is there, as the video progresses she gets more angry and begins to shout at him and later, smash objects in the room.

I thought that this may be possible to do something similar however using dance. A girl would be present as he dances, subtly wanting his attention and as the video progresses she would grow more angry trying to touch him yet he continuous dancing perfectly avoiding her as if she is not even there. This concept displays a sense that the guy is no longer able to love the girl in his relationship.

Although we all liked this idea, it was clear that it would only work in a very suiting location. Furthermore the video still had only 2 elements. Therefore we thought about showing the actual relationship of the couple through shots such as this:

In this we would see them doing general youth activities, perhaps including some of the things the song describes. They may be getting ready for a party, or smoking, reflecting the lyrics of the song and the theme of Youth - displaying experimentation and danger. Their chemistry would convey what appears to be a happy relationship, however in our second element (the dance) they would reveal an underlying sense of hatred for each other which builds throughout the song, representing the "lost lover" which the song discusses. Our third element would be the performance, we plan to confirm our intended visual appearance of this in our next meeting.

Ollie Allgrove - Talk from 'Passion Pictures'

Today we were given the opportunity to talk with an executive producer from passion pictures, an independant company who focus mainly on Feature films, music videos and commercials. This talk allowed us to gain a vast amount of insight into the music video production world and who it is done proffesionally in the industry.

The process begins with a commissioner who requests a treatment from different companies and directors who listen to the song and offer their own interpretation, with a music video concept.

Each director will recieve a brief. This includes:

- background on the band

- who the intended audience are

- where will the video be seen

- what the song is/what its about

The treatment is a response to this information which displays how the director/production team respond. They often talk about how the song has effected them personally, and what ideas came from this. The treatment includes all aspects of the video such as art direction, production design, what will we see and why, He recommended that the best treatments contain more pictures and fewer words. This allows the artist and producer to visualise the music video and have a better understanding of the directors intentions. 

He told us that artists are looking for views, controversy and impact with their music videos. The record label will collaborate with a director who they believe can achieve this and create the most suiting video for their artist and song.

Once a company/director has been chosen the pre-production stage begins. Here everything is planned with as much detail as possible so nothing can be left to chance on the day, this allows the production stage to be fluid with no obstacles. In doing so the shoot is efficient and leads to a more effective video.

The next stage is the shoot, which often happens in one day, with long hours, this is the most efficient way in terms of budget, and work.

Editing follows the production stage. This is a crucial part where the editor gets the opportunity to collaborate with the director and artist to dictate the story in whatever way they choose. The way the story is put together defines how the audience feel emotion. Another tip he gave, was to not fix it in post, everything has to be planned so nothing is left to chance.

He informed us that record labels often want to create a video that supports the conventions of the type of music video for their genre. This gives the audience what they know and like. They also want a good piece of story telling where the audience will watch till the end. Therefore in my music video I will try to not stray too far from the work that is already out there for this genre of music, as it is proven that the audience like this.

Research into similar products - Analysing conventions of videos that heavily feature a dancer

Music videos featuring dance - inspiration

Poliça – “Wandering Star”

Description: The video unifies a strong grouping of contemporary dancers who one-by-one attempt to raise an elderly woman from her emotional slumber.

As they engage the woman, who seems like an artist past her prime, she slowly comes to life once again, shared sensuality leading her to eventually participate in movement herself.

The setting is raw — with dancers wearing bodysuits in a stripped room and projections shot onto white sheets

The video is a display of human intimacy through a diversity of dance styles.

Verbatim that inspired the video “In a modern, tragic twist on the Greek myth of Pygmalion, a brilliant, elderly artist, alone in her studio, is surrounded by memories of past paintings/loved ones who come to life to inspire her final masterpiece: her own death.”

Visual elements

Camera

• Lots of tracking shots, (in and out crabbing), build tension

• close ups on specific body parts.

• wide variety of angles

• contrast between static shots and fast yet smooth camera tracks

• soft focus

Editing

• fades between different moments of the dance.
• frequent cuts between all angles.

Lighting

• Soft lighting
• very tranquil and pure.
• Use of projections on white curtains.

Costume

• animal like costumes, fur legs, tattoos, and patterns all over body.
• Elegant old fashioned clothing and overly made up appearance.
• Use of paint on the woman
• pure white ballerina costumes, covered in paint.
• motif of paint. Dribbling over the woman, and all over the dancers.

Considering more characters

After realising that simply 1 person dancing throughout our video may not be enough to sustain our audiences attention, we considered adding more characters, and thus developing a narrative. Josh has a girlfriend, with bright blonde hair who also has a very good dance ability. To add more interest and depth to their movement they could dance together. Moreover, she may even be a good candidate for the singer. Her look suits the voice as she can be made to appear quite mysterious. We are slightly unsure at the moment as we don't have a story to match their dancing however, we all agree it would be more interesting to have two dancers and to see the dynamic of their relationship as opposed to just one boy in his own world.

Discussing feedback from luke

In todays lesson we discussed our feedback from Luke and how we can develop our idea based on his criticisms.

We built upon his idea of having the boy an animal like creature and developed a full concept to our music video. We consider the though of having a girl dancing in the music video as well as the song is about love. However we were not entirely sure about this and thought it might be too much of an obvious plot. We agreed on having the girl enter at the end of the music video in the doorway of the house/hut where the performers are. Here they will stare at each other for a moment before the video finishes.

We discussed the jobs each of us needed to complete to ensure the music video could be possible with the best actors, costume and location so we each assigned ourselves some jobs. Here is our plan


We then began to make our music video treatment to outline what actually happens. Here is a sentence explaining our music video plus a more detailed explanation of the whole concept:

A mysterious woodland boy dances passionately through a Forrest, expressing the irony of animal freedom.

Video establishes the woodland setting. A Mysterious boy wakes up from the ground, he looks around at where he is, embracing his surroundings. He begins to dance slowly, using just hands, and head movements. As the song builds his dance skills grow stronger and more powerful. He uses the entire forrest, often running between different areas. Exploring the entire surroundings. The entire video is intercut with a performance from the band. This is located in an old abandoned house. At the end of the video the woodland boy will discover a girl in a doorway of the abandoned house. The video shows irony in the fact that the humans are trapped indoors and the animals are free.

Luke's Feedback

After pitching our ideas to Luke we received mixed feedback.

Here were the main points he mentioned:

• The concept seemed slightly fuzzy. We needed a reason for the boy being in the woods and a conclusion to the video.
• The impracticalities of shooting in the forrest in winter may effect the outcome of the video
• The performance aspect of the video, may not link too well with the video.

He suggested some solutions to these issues. Firstly he recommended that the woods wood be the boys home. He would be a creative aesthetic metaphor for the freedom of animals, in comparison to humans. This would be shown by the band performing in a hut, or abandoned house, also somewhere in the woods. This would mean the freedom expressed by the boy, through his dance, would be ironic in the fact that he is free and the humans are trapped however in reality it is the other way around. 

developing our shortlised ideas

focusing mainly on the boy in the Forrest and the golf club ideas. We used post it notes to document any new ideas that would add to the video and develop the concept.

Firstly the Dancing idea. Max and Ksenia like the simplicity, effectiveness and concept of the dancing video however inspired by the video chandelier they belived this worked and sustained our
attention because the song was so powerful, therefore they thought the song 'Youth' was slightly too repetitive and boring to last the whole 3 minutes. I argued the fact that we could make the visuals interesting enough to last the entire 3 minutes, and develop a cncept to the music video that would keep it flowing despite the singers relaxed tone. But, they convinced me that a more upbeat song would engage the viewer more instead of the possibility that they will grow bored of the video. We considered various songs such as "Marianas trench - Beside You" and "Loreen - I'm in it with you" however in the end we agreed on the song "Too Close by Alex Clare". Even though this is a well known song, we asked various people if they could match the voice to a face and many people said they had no idea what the singer looked like. Therefore, matching a singer to the vocals should not be too much of an issue. We also arose on the issue that the 2 elements (Dancing and Performance) did not match visually. It was suggested that the artists should perform in the woods as well to match the theme. The only thing this video is lacking at this stage is a narrative behind the dancing and a resolution. However the rest of the idea is fully formed.
Here is our brainstorm:

The second Idea with the boys in the golf club still had a variety of issues, and seemed somewhat under developed. Over the course of the discussion the golf club idea slowly turned into a one direction cheesy boyband style music video, which is something i planned to avoid. However creating a commercial product in this style, makes our music video very suiting to todays industry as there is a vast audience for this product. We decided that simply entering a driving range and hitting some fruit was not enough to last the whole 3 minutes, therefore we added a few extra moments that could occur on this night out on the golf course. Such as driving a golf buggy and pushing each other into bunkers. We began to realise how this idea may not be possible in terms of finding the actors to pull it off, and the location and props, Therefore we had a change of thought and consider the thought of turning this into a comedy music video using a variety of locations.

with inspiration from uptown funk and Ok Go, we thought about making a very slick choreographed music video following 4 band members on a car adventure to a variety of locations. This would include a car wash, featuring men provocatively washing their cars to create some humour, a golf driving range, a trampoline park, and a restaurant. The whole time their faces would remain in a natural expression, with the occasional head bopping in time to the music. It would also feature interesting and weird unnatural jump cuts where the characters switch seats in the car.

We are going to pitch our ideas to Luke tomorrow therefore I prepared a Prezi showcasing our ideas:

Short listing ideas - Group development

Today we were assigned our groups, I will be creating my music video with max and Ksenia

We began our first meeting be ruling out some of the ideas we thought were either no good or not feasible.

We were left with 4 ideas:

• My idea of the boy dancing in the woods

• My idea of the band partying at a golf club

• Max's idea of the man who's life is going down hill

• Ksenia's idea of a boy running the a Forrest meeting mystical characters.

We focused mainly on the boy in the Forrest and the golf club ideas. The reason we chose these ideas lied in the style mood, and clear vision we all had in our minds of what we expected these ideas to look like. Despite this, we all had different perceptions ideas, and issues with these ideas. I was evident that Ksenia's idea was similar to mine however I didn't quite understand how we would create the mystical characters, would we use animation? or extravagant costumes in a "where the wild things are" style. We eventually agreed that this could not be achieved, and ruled this idea out.

I felt that Max's idea was a bit fuzzy, and I didn't fully understand the full concept, as this idea was the least developed concept with some cheesy sections and a lot of walking, we felt that it would be best to rule this out at an early stage, and stick with the more favoured ideas. We were then left with 2 ideas to brainstorm in our next discussion. 

Researching the appeals of music videos to 17-18 year olds

understanding the audiences of music videos is essential to the process of creating my own music video. Therefore in class we choose 3 music videos that we all agreed appealed to our age group and then analysed the reasons for this.

 Style by Taylor swift 

The video uses a variety of stylistic elements which create aesthetically pleasing visuals, this offers something interesting for the audience to admire sustaining our attention throughout.

Taylor swift, the lead singer, is a major appeal for the video. She is Idealised and made to look majestic and elegant. By presenting the specific look and style she possess in the music video girls take inspiration and fashion influence from what clothes and makeup she wears, as they would a magazine.

The Male character featured in the video Creates a sexual appeal for girls.  He is idealised similar to taylor swift presented as a very masculine and perfect image of a man.

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 The romantic narrative in the video reflects the lyrics of the song, this is likely to appeal to teenage girls as they find thrill in the care and devotion the 'good looking' male lavishes upon taylor swift.

The use of projections on the body shows of taylor swift and the male characters body shape and figure's whilst also indicates their connection. This visual effect also supports the aesthetics of the video and creates something different and interesting to look at.

The overall beauty of the visuals and heroism displayed through the characters is what creates appeal in this video. It is liked for the way Taylor swift and 'her man' are presented and the visual elements that reflect the mood and tone of the song and the love story.


Uptown funk by Mark Ronson & Bruno Mars

The video stars both Mark Rohnson and Bruno mars, which is where a lot of the appeal of this music video lies, however in the music video they are presented to be very cool stylish confident guys. 

They sing directly to the camera reaching out to their audience, and performing directly to the viewer.

The choice of shots, is almost reflective of a rap video, using a low, wide angle . The effect of this shot draws the viewer closer to the artist. and is a quirky and interesting thing to watch.

The visual elements such as the camera work, intend to reflect the quirkiness of the movement and the song. Here the camera rotates, a very unnatural distorted move, however quite entertaining combined with the on screen action.

There is a lot of humour in the video. This lies in the fact that everything is so perfectly timed and choreographed. It makes the performers look very smooth and cool. Furthermore, the music video world they have created where they are doing everyday activities yet dancing and singing their way through, creates comedy aswell.

The video then resorts to a 'live performance type scene. Here they are performing to show how they are in the eye of the public very popular, and very cool. This makes it seem like dancing, singing and performing is part of their every day life. 

class response to Initial Ideas

I received some very positive feedback from the class when presenting my 3 music video concepts.

The class seemed to favourite idea number two. I expected this to happen as it is the most fun and very easy to visualise. However, my concern with this idea would be whether I can get the resources to create the rich and disorderly party atmosphere. I admire the fact that it will be very fun and exciting to watch, however struggling to finding the resources combined with the complexity of shooting a scene where things get destroyed may prove very difficult meaning the final result will not be up to expectation. In addition it was also mentioned that the chosen song might be a little too popular. I am going to research songs with a similar tone and mood which would match my idea. The first idea is my favourite at this moment in time because I believe it can be the most impressive as the idea is simple leaving me to be as creative as possible with setting, lighting and camera work. The final idea had the least amount of positive feedback, I believe this is due to the complexity of having four narratives and the unoriginality of it, I somewhat agree with this making it my least favourite idea.

Here is a cut down version of the video feedback I received showing the important comments and criticisms on my ideas: